


Don't Feel

by Kunstpause



Series: All the things you shouldn't do [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Character Study, Emotions, F/M, Morning After, they are scary alright?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunstpause/pseuds/Kunstpause
Summary: Althea knew she shouldn't even entertain certain thoughts, but what wouldn't she do just to feel something...
Relationships: Zenos yae Galvus/Warrior of Light
Series: All the things you shouldn't do [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982170
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Don't Feel

It was still dark outside as Thea slowly made her way through the mostly unfamiliar room. It wasn’t actually cold, but the nightly winds in Ala Mhigo had a certain, sharp quality to them that was just enough to not be entirely comfortable. 

She had wrapped a thin sheet around her, to keep the slight chill that came through the open windows at bay, as she lit a small candle. 

There hadn’t been any time for her to take in her surroundings earlier that evening. All she had noticed was, that the chambers she was in were opulently furnished in traditional, Ala Mhigan styles. Decorative, intricately woven tapestries adorned the walls. As Thea quietly walked around, trying to see as much as she could in the dim light the candle gave her, she noticed that, while everything was meticulously decorated and placed, there seemed to be next to no personal touch to anything. Nothing looked like it was regularly used. The entire room felt like there was no one actually living in it. The armor stand in one corner, and an elaborate display of several swords seemed to be the only things she could see, that actually seemed to belong to Zenos. 

That was until she passed through the doorway into the connected side room and came to halt in front of the books. Carefully she raised up her light, looking around this entirely different room, taking it all in. It was what looked like a small library. Tall bookshelves filled every single bit of wall-space, reaching up high to the ceilings. There was a table to the side that was littered with books, some lying open, many having more than one bookmark poking out of them. A pair of reading glasses sat on top of another pile on the desk, accompanied by what looked like a mug of tea gone cold.

In the same corner, safely behind glass, there was a small oil lamp still burning. Like someone had forgotten to turn it off as they left this place in a hurry. 

_To go looking for an intruder_ , Althea thought to herself as she kept looking around. This room felt so decidedly different from the rest of his chambers, it was nearly incomprehensible. But only nearly. Dimly, she remembered the stories from back home. About the crown prince who never showed his face in public. Who couldn’t be bothered to attend official functions and the gossipy voices of the people claiming that he rarely ever left the royal library. 

Curiously, Thea walked along the bookshelves, running her hand over the fascinatingly varied arsenal of volumes. She tried to make sense of it, but as she read over the titles, she couldn’t discern a system of order behind it all. From war tactics to poetry, history books to a manual on herbal remedies specific to Orthand, and even children’s books, the shelves seemed to be in no particular order.

“How does he find anything in here?” she mumbled quietly.

“By remembering where I put it,” came his answer from behind her, and Althea nearly dropped the candle in surprise as she turned around. 

Zenos stood in the doorway, wearing only a loose pair of pants as he watched her with curious eyes. His long hair fell openly over his shoulders and chest, only partially hiding the cuts and scratches she had inflicted on him earlier and Althea swallowed, suddenly acutely aware of her own skin looking much the same under the sheet. If she listened closely to herself, she could feel the dull pull of freshly closed cuts and blooming bruises quiver in tune with her own heartbeat.

“If you are looking for your weapon, it is in the sitting room, right there on the table,” Zenos added at that moment, inclining his head with a raised eyebrow and Thea swallowed once again. She hadn’t even been looking for it when it would have been the smart thing to do that first thing after she had gotten up. But somehow, the room she stood in was far more interesting than her missing chakram.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding so overly polite that her own voice felt out of place to her. “But I was just…” she looked around the room, trying to find an explanation why it held her attention so much.

“Not one for sleep?” Zenos mused, looking the slightest bit intrigued at her behavior. 

Althea shrugged in an attempt to look more casual. He had a way about him that caught her off-guard far too many times. Just for once, she would prefer to keep her calm around him. “I bore easily,” she said simply before her eyes went to the bookshelves again. 

“Anything catching your fancy?” he asked, sounding just as polite and laid back as she did. Althea wasn’t sure if they were playing a game or if, by some strange occurrence, for once neither of them was. 

“I can’t tell, there is no way of finding anything in here.” Again, her attention was caught by the shelves. As if there was something there, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on yet. Hidden in plain sight. 

Zenos chuckled, and the sound sent a shiver down her back with how new it was. How different it sounded from everything she heard from him before. “There is a system,” he insisted. “Trust me.”

“So, there is _something_ you do, except fighting all day after all,” Althea said lightly, and the half-smile on his face – like the chuckle before – felt so very different from the smiles she had seen before, it was mesmerizing to watch as he shrugged. “I bore easily,” he quoted her earlier reply with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

And suddenly, as Thea looked once again, she saw what she had noticed before in the back of her mind. Her frown slowly melted away and gave way to a smile. It was in the spines of the books. From the far end of the room to the shelves near the reading table, the change was subtle, but once she was aware of it, she couldn’t unsee it. He did have a system, indeed. The books were sorted by how often he had read each one of them. 

Following a hunch she went up to the desk, placing the candle-holder down carefully, before reaching for the shelf that was closest. Her fingertips brushed over well-worn leather, feeling each crack in the spine as she pulled out a small volume. The moment she saw what it was, she knew that what she held in her hands was his favorite book. 

“Fairy tales…” Thea said softly. She could hear him shift slightly behind her before his equally quiet voice came.

“I always found them… more compelling than everything else,” he said simply. “More vivid, more real…”

“Describing what life was supposed to be, instead of the dull grey mass that we get,” she finished the bit he was quoting, and her eyes flickered to the cover of the book she still held. She knew this particular story only all too well. A tale of a young child that wanted to experience the world but could only ever see it in black and white. A story about their journey to find the color everyone else kept talking about. It had always been a bittersweet story for her, amplified by the tale leaving it open, whether the hero found the color at last, or simply learned to see the beauty in the grey. “My mother used to read this to me,” she said finally. 

“Your mother?” There was a clear hint of confusion in his voice and Althea couldn’t blame him for it. She would be hard-pressed to imagine a village full of wood-dwelling Viera reading their children imperial bedtime stories as well.

“My adoptive mother,” she clarified. As different as they had been, thoughts of her parents – her real parents – the people who had taken her in without reservation and had raised her as their own, never once making her feel like she didn’t belong, always put a small smile on her face. A smile and a dull tug of pain at their loss. No matter how much further the Calamity sank into the past, the sense of loss never really lightened. 

Althea shook off the gloomy thoughts, focusing on the things that made her smile instead. “It was one of her favorite stories as well, I think,” she mused. “We had a very passionate fight about the ending when I was about seven.” Her hand smoothed over the worn cover, as she followed the letters imprinted on it with her fingertips. “My mother was convinced there was only one true ending, that the moral of the story was, that you have to grow up to accept the world as it is – and then you will find happiness in it.”

While she talked, Zenos stepped closer, coming up behind her until he could look over her shoulder. “If you fought her on this I suspect that seven-year-old you thought the exact opposite,” he said, and his warm breath on her neck sent a pleasant shudder down her back.

“I was furious that she even wanted me to consider that claim,” Thea said, a rush of old, long-forgotten fondness going through her at the memory. “I fought her tooth and nail on this, until my father intervened, making us agree to disagree.” With a last fond look at the book, she carefully placed it back in its designated spot.

A moment later, Zenos’ warm hands were on her shoulders, drawing her back against him. It felt decidedly different than everything that had happened between them before. Softer. Nearly unbearably so, Thea thought as he asked, “And what do you think today?”

Althea didn’t answer. Not out loud at least. There was something there between them, something just like this library. Something she could almost see. Hidden in plain sight, ready for her to discover if she only looked long enough and she let herself relax against him, shifting slightly until the sheet around her fell open in the front. An image from earlier that night was vividly on her mind. Of him, looking down at her with red-stained lips, and Thea turned around, the sheet falling to the floor forgotten as she pressed herself against his warm, naked chest. 

She looked up with the knowledge that she still believed as fiercely as she did when she was seven years old. That she could never stop looking for color in her life. And as her hand snuck around his neck, drawing him down into a kiss that was smoldering with red, hot, heat she thought she just might have an idea of where to look.

* * *

Her thoughts kept running back to that night. To the day after, when she had snuck out of his palace again at the cusp of dawn, taking great care not to wake him before she took her clothes and her weapons and outright fled. Everything about that night had been overwhelming, drawing her thoughts back again and again and again. For a brief moment, Thea had thought she finally understood. Had felt a myriad of emotions whirling around in her, putting her almost in a euphoric state. But as she had returned to Doma, it was slipping through her fingers like sand. 

Thea tried her best to forget all about it. No matter how much she felt, how wonderful things had seemed in the heat of the moment, she knew only too well that every bit about it was wrong. Something in her turned bitter at the thought, that of course the moment she actually managed to feel something, her feelings were nothing but wrong. Something she definitely wasn't supposed to have. 

The numbness returning bit by bit felt nearly like relief. Relief for the guilt that accompanied her. In the end, wasn't it better to feel nothing at all, than to let emotions led her astray? But something about the familiar apathy was different. Like it couldn't quite smother the faint traces of yearning inside her anymore. Thea sighed, as she heard footsteps beside her.

“What is it?” she asked and lifted her head as she looked at the person who’s shadow had fallen on her.

In front of her stood Lyse, wringing her hands ever so slightly as she looked at her with worry in her eyes. “Oh, nothing,” Lyse mumbled before taking a deep breath. “It’s just that you seemed… unhappy.”

Thea didn’t know what to reply for a moment and so she just continued to stare. With a sigh, Lyse sat down next to her, looking out over the vast landscape of the Steppe as she spoke softly. “Look, everyone is celebrating. And with good reason, we won the Naadam, _you_ won it! But you just seem like you’d rather be somewhere else. Like it pains you to be here.” She sent Althea a quick look sideways before continuing, “And it’s not the first time I’ve seen you like this.”

Thea’s eyebrows rose. She had thought to have a better lock on what she showed to the outside world. “It’s not?” she asked carefully, and Lyse shook her head.

“I mean, maybe it’s nothing big. Yugiri said I am overreacting. Said that it happens to her all the time, that people think she is angry and mean, but it’s just her face, you know?” Her friend explained, her hands twitching with slight nervousness. “She says the horns and the scales make people think she is one thing when she is actually not all the damn time. So maybe that’s the same for you?” Curiosity mixed in with her worry as she looked at Althea. “I don’t know! But in case it isn’t I just thought…”

“Lyse!” Thea interrupted her with a small chuckle.

“Yes?”

“Breathe!”

Her friend sputtered for a moment before smiling sheepishly. “Yes, yes of course. Sorry! I didn’t want to just ramble at you. I just thought, well, maybe Yugiri is right but what if she isn’t? So I thought I should ask. In case you are. Unhappy, I mean….” She drew in a deep breath, looking away as she scratched her head in embarrassment. “Aaaand now I am shutting up because you are looking at me weirdly and I am pretty sure I overstepped some boundaries here.”

“Maybe,” Thea said carefully, but she couldn’t deny that Lyse’s concern was somewhat endearing. In her own, strange, sometimes overly meddling way at least. “But that doesn’t mean you are completely wrong though,” Thea admitted. “I am… unhappy. Sort of.”

“I knew it!” Lyse said just a little bit too loud and with a flinch she reigned herself back in. “So, what is it? How can I help? You gotta let me help. I am good at this. At fixing people!”

“You think I need fixing?” Althea’s voice was carefully neutral but Lyse didn’t seem to pick up on the change as she nodded.

“Well, you are unhappy, you just said so! So let’s find a way to fix that!”

If it had been anyone else talking about _‘fixing her’_ Thea knew she would have been in no mood to even consider talking further. But she knew the other woman. Knew exactly how her sometimes clunky sounding words were meant. She knew there was only genuine concern behind them and so she let out a sigh. “I don’t think it’s something you can fix.”

“Nonsense,” Lyse said with a bright smile on her face. “You underestimate me! An unhappy hero? That’s no good! Can’t have a sad warrior of light after all, can we?” 

And there it was, the crux of it all. The thing it came down to. An unhappy warrior of light was an atrocity after all. Something to fix. An unhappy regular person though might just be unimportant enough to not care. A tang of bitterness lay on Althea’s tongue as she, not for the first time, wondered if anyone would worry even a fraction about her if she weren’t their vaunted hero. Their solution to throw at everything that gave them trouble. If any of her fellow Scions would have even looked at her twice without her _‘gift’_.

“Why not?” she asked with a hollow voice. “You seemed to have done fine with one for the past few years.”

If Thea had been in a more generous mood, she would have felt slightly bad about the way Lyse’s eyes widened in shock. But as she watched the other woman grasp for words Thea felt nothing. 

“You’ve been upset for that long?” Lyse finally got out, her eyes full of disbelief. “Why? What is the matter?” When Althea didn’t answer immediately, Lyse reached for her hand, clasping it firmly as she looked at her with pleading eyes. “Please Thea, talk to me! I promise you, I can help! I will find a way to help!”

Thea looked at her for a long moment before she finally shook her head. “Can you teach me how to feel?” she asked quietly, her voice slightly rough as she looked into her friend’s confused eyes. With an exasperated sigh, Althea looked up at the stars. “I fight and I fight and I fight. For you. For the Scions. For Ishgard. For Doma… I’ve nearly died a dozen times. I’ve ended wars, fought gods, and do you know what I felt about all that?” Her voice was harder as she turned her eyes toward Lyse again. “Nothing. I felt absolutely _nothing_.” 

She could see her words were upsetting, but Thea didn’t find it in herself to care. “Each time you all send me out to fight I win. And I come home and wait until the next fight. And then I win that too. And the next one.” She let out a harsh scoff. ' _A trained pet.'_ Zenos' words echoed through her mind. “And it never ends. I fight, I win. What other choice is there really, right?” She looked down at her clenched hands for a moment. “And through it all, I don’t care about it one bit. I just… function. There is no reason behind any of this, nothing that makes me feel even the slightest bit.” 

Suddenly, the whole atmosphere around them felt like too much, as Althea realized she had never voiced some of these thoughts out loud before. And certainly not towards another person. Least of all someone she considered a friend. Abruptly she stood up.

“So you see, you can’t help me,” Thea said roughly, not daring to look at Lyse anymore. “No one can. I just might always be a little unhappy. I suggest you just make your peace with that. I know I have.”

And with those words, she turned around and made her way to her tent, unwilling to admit, even to herself, that her last words were nothing but a poorly constructed lie.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come talk to me over on tumblr ^^](https://kunstpause.tumblr.com)


End file.
